


Hold On To Me (I'm a Little Unsteady)

by theyalldeservedbetter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Chronic Illness, F/F, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, It'll be a bumpy road to get there, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Kara/Maggie brotp, Multiple Sclerosis, Self-Doubt, Sick Kara Danvers, Sick!Kara, but they'll all be happy in the end, but we still love her, kara is insecure, major character illness, they all do really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyalldeservedbetter/pseuds/theyalldeservedbetter
Summary: Kara has been happy. But when her illness starts creeping back into her life it sends her into a dark place from which only her family can help her escape.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers & Lena Luthor, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers & Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Lena Luthor & Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 21
Kudos: 118





	1. It's Coming Back

The door shut behind Kara as she finally made it home. It was later than usual and she just let her head rest against the solid door behind her, eyes closed and finally able to soak in the comfort of being back in her own space.

She had been having more and more late nights and as much as she didn’t want to be affected by the changing work hours, she could feel the effects on her body. It seemed almost as though the exhaustion seeped into her very bones.

Blue eyes opened slowly and landed on the form in the kitchen. Lena was standing at the counter arranging their meal for the evening and Kara felt some of her exhaustion seep away.

The green-eyed angel currently standing only a few feet away from her had been the reporter’s only refuge on most days. On the really hard days, Lena was the only one who could always bring Kara back to herself.

“Hey, love, you’re back. Come and sit – the food is hot and ready to be on its way to your tummy.”

Though her back was to the blonde, Kara could hear the smile in Lena’s voice. As prim and proper as Lena had to be at work, the polished CEO appreciated the time with Kara that she could be as playful and laid back as she wanted.

Sharing a kiss and helping to set the table, Kara felt the conflict build within her. She knew that her wife had gone through all of the trouble of making food, preparing the meal, having it all ready as Kara was getting back from work, and doing so much for the reporter. But, more than anything, Kara just wanted to collapse on their bed, curl up, and never move.

Pushing through her discomfort and trying her best not to display it for Lena, Kara sat at the table and put as much effort as she could into eating. Twirling her fork through the pasta on the plate, she put very little effort into actually consuming any of the food and she knew that Lena would notice.

Of course, Lena did notice. Lena had been attuned to Kara’s every mood and emotion since the beginning stages of their relationship. After so long together – years of friendship that eventually morphed into something more – the two women were like planets orbiting each other – their respective gravitational pulls were enough to allow them to have their own lives while constantly being connected to each other.

Lena could see the struggle on Kara’s features and she also knew that Kara didn’t want her to see it. With this information in mind Lena went on talking about her day. She spoke in whispers, a soft voice that would hopefully provide more comfort than discomfort to the lovely being across from her.

Dinner was a struggle, as was cleaning up afterwards. The exhaustion was evident on Kara’s features and it came across in her every action. The woman who usually danced while cleaning, showing subtle affection to Lena every time they crossed each other, was doing only the necessary work in absolute silence.

The two women went through their nightly routine, once again orbiting each other but never getting in the other’s way. Lena watched Kara, though, growing more and more concerned as Kara got more and more withdrawn.

They lay in bed, close enough to know that the other was there but not close enough for excess physical contact. Their goodnight kiss was still there, Kara still told Lena that she loved her before laying down, but the extra enthusiasm that Kara generally exuded was missing and Lena felt as though she was failing.

It had been so long since Kara had gone through a phase like this. Before her diagnosis, Lena had absolutely no idea how to handle what was happening. She had grown more and more concerned that she was doing something wrong and nothing she could do ever seemed to help.

Once Kara got her diagnosis everything changed.

They finally had answers. Kara, Lena, Alex, and Maggie spent so much time both before and after receiving the diagnosis coming up with a plan-of-action to help Kara as much as they could. Kara was, of course, extremely uncomfortable with the amount of attention she was being shown. Eventually, however, she had had to accept that the people who loved her were completely willing to adapt their lives to help her however they could.

Accepting the possibility and allowing it to happen were different things, however, and Kara struggled with the latter. She knew that her condition affected the people around her. As inconvenient as it was for her to live with it herself, there was nothing she hated more than how it affected her family.

* * *

The peppy blonde had slowly become more and more withdrawn over the previous week, and it continued like that for another three days before Lena finally couldn’t take it anymore.

Alex’s phone rang on the counter and Maggie leaned over to see who it was.

“Hey, Al, it’s Little Luthor. I’m gonna answer it, ok?”

Alex hummed her approval as Maggie answered the call and put it on speaker. “What’s up, Little Luthor? Alex is experimenting at the stove so I’m her designated secretary for the moment.”

Lena chuckled. “Hello detective. You might want to save the phone to call the fire marshals if you’ve let Alex near the stove.”

Alex turned her head to glare at her wife. “Lena, you know the Danvers prone to pyrotechnics is actually in your house, right? I literally haven’t burned anything in years. Will you guys ever drop this?”

Lena and Maggie both chuckled lightly.

“So what’s up, Lena? I don’t think you would’ve called at this time just to see what’s happening in our kitchen.”

Lena sighed, hoping Maggie would have let them stall for longer but knowing the smaller woman liked to get to the point quickly. The tense silence that followed started making Alex and Maggie more and more nervous.

The two shared a look and Alex turned off the stove to come stand next to Maggie. They walked over to the table to have a seat, feeling as though this conversation would be more serious than they expected.

Eventually, Lena realized that she would have to be the one to speak first.

“I think it’s coming back.”

The soft-spoken words were filled with a brokenness that hadn’t been heard in a long time. Alex and Maggie waited, knowing the younger Irishwoman would eventually explain.

“She’s trying to hide it, but the signs are all coming back. She comes home exhausted every day, her hand is shaking and she drops things that she should be able to hold, she won’t admit it but I can see the signs of her headache.” Lena paused and took a deep breath. “She stood up from the table the yesterday and immediately started to fall over.”

Alex and Maggie looked at each other. The doctor’s deep golden eyes filled with tears and Maggie reached over to grab her hand. “What can we do?” The detective’s voice stayed calm and steady, knowing her two girls needed someone to anchor them in the moment. Of course, that didn’t mean that Maggie’s own heart wasn’t breaking.

The three women came up with a plan to try and help Kara. They knew that the blonde wouldn’t come out and ask for their assistance, but they also knew that they would be there for her in this relapse.

Kara and Lena went through their nightly routine again. It hurt Lena to know that this silent, distanced routine was coming back and there was nothing she could do to comfort the love of her life while she struggled.

As they lay in bed, Kara with her back to Lena and Lena dying to comfort her wife, both women felt as though something in them was breaking.

Kara couldn’t do anything about the war brewing within herself. She felt herself falling further and further into that dark space in her head.

When she first received her diagnosis, she was actually happy. Everyone expected her to break, to fall apart, to lament the loss of her previous life, but she did none of that. Receiving a diagnosis did not break her spirit or make her feel as though she had lost the rest of her life – no, it had given her an answer and felt like a guide. She finally knew what was happening to her, she finally knew that she wasn’t just crazy like everyone said, or that she wasn’t just making up the symptoms.

Getting the diagnosis had been a comfort in the beginning. As she went into remission and was free of her symptoms her spirit got stronger. The bubbly blonde bounced her way through her life – a great job, a great wife, a great family, and a great outlook.

Sure, there were times that her symptoms came back, but they never stayed as long and they were never as serious as her first attack. No matter what came her way, she never broke.

Now? Now she didn’t know what to do. She had never had a relapse this bad before. It had started small - a dull headache at her right temple, a tremor in her hand that didn’t affect her day-to-day life, the feeling of the ground rolling as she walked. They were things that she could push through without anyone realizing that they were happening. As they got more and more intense, however, she could no longer hide it.

The tremor graduated to lack of control; she was dropping everything from pens to her phone to her utensils at dinner. The dull headache became a searing pain in her skull that left her nauseous with black spots in her vision. The rolling ground all of a sudden felt like a rocking boat where she would move and immediately feel the world tilt around her.

Trying and failing to keep up pretenses, Kara knew that she would eventually have to tell Lena what was going on. As it was, there was no way her wife hadn’t figured out what was going on. Lena was there for her first attack and that wasn’t a period of time that any of them would ever forget; besides, Lena was a genius and she would’ve picked up the signs in the beginning.

She tried. God, Kara tried so hard not to let her condition affect her life and the lives of the people around her. It seemed almost impossible to keep avoiding it though.

Accepting her relapse hit Kara in her very soul. Lying in bed that evening, trying and failing to hide her suffering from the love of her life, Kara finally felt her resolve break.

The first tear made its way out of her eye and over the bridge of her nose. Being so on edge, everything was capable of setting Kara off, and the tears falling sideways off her head was no exception.

Lena was laid there, gently staring at the back of her wife’s head, wishing with everything she had that the beautiful blonde would let her carry some of her burden. The first sniffle let Lena know that Kara was finally breaking out of her own head.

The feeling of a hand snaking around her waist, her wife’s head resting on her shoulder as her front pressed against her back had Kara break down all the way.

As Lena got as close to Kara as she could, she felt the blonde’s body start rocking with full-blown sobs. It had been so long since Lena had seen Kara in such a state and Lena felt her own eyes well up at the pain her wife was so clearly in. She pressed kisses into the side of Kara’s head, whispering sweet affirmations of love into the reporter’s ear to make sure she knew that Lena was there for her no matter what.

As Kara started sobbing, she turned around in her wife’s arms and buried her face in the brunette’s neck. Lena could feel a wet spot slowly growing on her collarbone and tried giving Kara as much love and strength as she could through gentle kisses to her head.

Once Kara had finally cried herself out, Lena felt her go lax in her arms.

“I love you,” came the whispered voice, broken but honest, from the crook of her neck. It tickled her throat but it rang with emotion.

“We’ll get through this. Together. Forever.”

* * *

With Nia’s help, Kara was able to delegate her work more. She had replaced Snapper a few years back when her mentor finally decided to retire and was happy to be a guide to the people in her department.

Nia was more than happy to pick up some of the slack that Kara would have to leave in order to maintain both her work and her health.

With her latest relapse being as serious as it was, Kara and Lena had to figure out what to do in terms of treatment. The amount of options that they had were almost overwhelming at times. Kara had an incredible specialist and the doctors at Alex’s hospital were more than happy to help out where they could, but the ultimate decision always came on Kara’s suddenly fatigued shoulders.

Kara knew that the most reasonable treatment option was. In an ideal world she knew which one she would pick. In an ideal world, however, her course of treatment wouldn’t affect anyone but herself.

She knew, however, that she wouldn’t be the only one who had to go through her treatment. While they may not be getting the medication injections, Lena, Alex, and Maggie would all want to amend their own lives to help her deal with it. Which is exactly what she didn’t want for them.

The normally bubbly blonde had become more and more withdrawn as her condition got more and more severe. While she never closed herself off as completely as she did in the begging of the relapse, she stayed introverted and quiet, never complaining to her family but never laughing with them either.

Lena watched her wife try to go through this by herself and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. As painful as it was for her to watch Kara recede into herself and suffer silently, she knew it was even worse for Kara to take the whole burden on herself.

Kara had finally crossed the physical gap between them and resumed physical affection. It had changed, however. Before, Kara was always reassuring Lena. A gentle hand at the small of her back, or a loving kiss pressed into the back of her neck. A squeeze of her hand as they walked away from each other or a soft hand cradling Lena’s face before a reverent kiss was placed on her forehead. Kara always did whatever she could to ensure that Lena knew she would always be there for her, that Kara loved Lena with everything she had in her and it would never go away.

Lena would give anything to be able to return the sentiment, but she knew Kara would never ask. At the peak of her bad days, Kara seemed to seek out the reassurances herself, but never to the extent that Lena could feel as though she was paying anything back to her wife.

Kara’s exhaustion caused her to spend much of her time at home on the sofa or in their bed. When Lena finally crawled her way next to her wife, Kara would immediately curl herself around the brunette. It took Lena a few days to understand the movement but Kara seemed to be reassuring herself that Lena was actually there – that she wasn’t alone.

It was the same situation as they slept. Kara slept much more conservatively than she did before. Where she used to end up all over the bed before, Kara now started sleeping strictly on “her” side of the bed. Without fail, however, Lena would wake up to a little blonde head pressed into her neck, an arm around her waist and the reporter pressed fully along the length of her body.

Lena started waking up early just to revel in the feel of her wife in her arms.

Alex and Maggie came by whenever they could. Sometimes together and sometimes alone. Alex had taken a lighter load at the hospital, performing less surgeries and consulting more. It was temporary, of course, but it didn’t make Kara feel like any less of a burden. While Maggie couldn’t take any time off of work or reduce her workload, she would come by whenever her shift ended early. The days she would come, Lena knew she could take care of some extra work left over between CatCo and L-Corp.

Kara was almost never alone and, as comforting as it was to have the people that she loved around, her feeling of being a burden slowly morphed into a darker feeling of self-hatred.

There was a constant battle within the blonde, internally tearing her apart over whether to let her loved ones know how much her relapse was affecting her or keep trying to maintain an indifferent front. Time seemed to be intent on forcing her decision, however, no longer letting her pretend that she remained unaffected.

One afternoon, about 6 weeks after Kara started treatment once more, Maggie found herself making her way into Lena and Kara’s penthouse just after lunch. She had finished up at the precinct earlier than anticipated and decided to go hang out with Kara.

It didn’t take them long to understand that Kara was starting to feel stifled under their attention. Never once did she complain, but she didn’t need to verbalize anything. Lena could see that the only time Kara really released the tension from her shoulders, the crinkle from between her eyebrows, was when she was doing her nightly routine – finally some time by herself without the risk of people showing up unannounced.

Alex and Maggie had not yet stopped by that week. At Kara’s urging, Alex resumed her previous workload and thus had less flexibility to stop by whenever she wanted.

Maggie walked in and immediately noticed that the living room was empty. There were dishes with food sitting on the counter, but they looked completely untouched. The silence settled over the penthouse was not a calm, comforting sort – there was a sort of tension built up within the walls and Maggie was immediately on edge.

The sound of retching and gagging had Maggie dropping the things in her hands and immediately running to the master bathroom.

She found Kara bent over the toilet, violently throwing up whatever was in her stomach. Her eyes were clenched shut and her exhaustion was palpable.

The detective rushed over to where the younger woman was sitting. She gently gathered her hair back from her face and rubbed soothing circles on Kara’s back.

“Oh sweetheart you’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Sh sh sh…”

She continued to whisper sweet nothings, ignoring the tears building up in her own eyes at the sight before her. Nobody deserved to suffer like this, much less Kara Danvers.

When Kara had finally finished bringing up the last of what was left in her stomach, she fell back and onto Maggie. Maggie had to brace herself to bear the sudden weight of her younger sister-in-law but there was no way she was letting Kara fall now.

She waited quietly for a few minutes, running her hand over Kara’s head lovingly and just holding her close. She recognized Kara’s desire for quiet companionship and aimed to give her whatever she could.

Eventually, Kara gathered enough strength to pull herself off the floor. As she brokenly pulled herself up, eyes still scrunched tight, she found she could not stand upright. She immediately felt her world start tilting and fell to her right.

Maggie was attuned to Kara’s condition and saw it coming, so she was prepared to catch the younger woman as she fell. She let Kara lean into her as she stood for a moment, letting Kara gather herself before they started walking.

She flushed the toilet before leading Kara over to the sink. There was a small cup there that the detective filled with water to help her rinse out the taste of vomit.

The small Italian woman settled Kara on the sofa before heading to the kitchen to get her some Sprite and crackers. She knew the medication had killed Kara’s appetite so she likely hadn’t eaten much that day; what little she did eat had just been expelled from her body and needed replacing.

As Maggie came back to sit next to Kara she found tears silently trailing tracks down the blonde’s cheeks.

Lena had mentioned to both Alex and Maggie that Kara had not cried once since her relapse. They were all concerned that Kara was bottling things inside of herself, but they had not yet figured out a sensitive way to approach Kara with their concerns.

Whatever had brought on Kara’s vomiting episode seemed to finally break her resolve.

And with it broke Maggie’s heart.

“No honey, you’re okay. You’re okay sweetie just let it out.”

Maggie wiping the tears from her cheek and whispering sweet affirmations of love knocked down the last of Kara’s walls. The first sob fell from her lips, and the torrent could no longer be held back.

Kara covered her face with her hands and her shoulders started shaking with sobs. She fell into Maggie and the detective eased her head onto her shoulder. Maggie leaned back on the sofa, resting against the cushions on the arm and let Kara lay across her. The blonde’s face ended up pressed into her collarbone and a wet spot grew quickly on Maggie’s shirt.

Kara’s hand stayed over her face. Though her resolve had broken she couldn’t bring herself to fully display her desolate situation. She hid herself as much as she could, still unconsciously trying to protect Maggie from having to see the extent of her own heartbreak.

The broken sobs were heart-wrenching to hear and Maggie finally had to let her own tears fall. She continued to whisper sweet messages of encouragement and love into her little sister’s ears – all the while pressing kisses to the top of her head and letting her hands rub soothingly over her back.

This was the scene to which Lena entered their home. Kara was curled into Maggie on their sofa, face hidden and hand grasping the detective’s shirt tightly. Maggie had her head leaned back over the arm of the sofa and was staring blankly at the ceiling.

Sensing a body come sit on the coffee table next to them finally pulled Maggie out of her musings. She turned her head to see Lena staring at them reverently and tears immediately filled her eyes again.

If Lena hadn’t been nervous before she was panicking now.

“She doesn’t deserve this, Lena. She doesn’t deserve it.”

Maggie’s broken whisper brought tears to Lena’s own eyes. It was clear that something had happened, but Kara was finally resting and they couldn’t risk disrupting that.

It didn’t evade anyone’s attention, however, that the ever-present tension in Kara’s eyebrows was still there in her sleep. In the place of her normal, happy face was now a seemingly unrelenting anguish.

Lena looked over to notice that the food she had set out for Kara remained untouched. It looked like Maggie had some takeout as well that was still sealed. Kara’s recent lack of appetite meant that it was more difficult than ever to get her to eat – most likely the blonde hadn’t eaten anything at all.

Maggie watched as Lena slowly put her things away and got settled into more comfortable clothes. The CEO walked into the kitchen to put things away as quietly as possible. The plate of food previously on the counter was placed in the fridge, Maggie’s snacks put into containers to be placed to the side. A new sort of exhaustion seemed to emanate from Lena as well. Maggie could only sympathize with her situation.

They all loved Kara. To see her suffer in the ways that she was hurt everyone. Lena’s situation was different from theirs, however.

Alex and Maggie loved Kara to their full capacity. They had feared in the beginning that the sisters’ new relationships would affect their own, but it had only made them stronger. In fact, Alex and Kara both gained new sisters in their sisters-in-law, and they could not be more grateful. And Lena and Maggie returned the sentiments. For Alex and Maggie to see Kara suffering through her relapse, it was devastating.

It didn’t compare to what Lena was going through, however.

The CEO was the one to support Kara throughout the entire day. She saw Kara when the blonde allowed her defenses to fall further than usual; she saw the raw suffering of the reporter day in and day out. No matter how much Kara tried to internalize it all, there was only so much she could hide.

Maggie could feel Kara starting to shift. Instead of being relaxed as she should be following a nap, the younger woman was getting more tense. Kara pushed her face further into Maggie’s neck and her hand clenched into a fist.

The detective pressed a kiss into her head and gently rubbed her hand over Kara’s hair.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? What can we do?”

She whispered it as soft as she could, but it resonated in Kara’s head like a megaphone. A whimper fell from the depths of her throat and she shuddered.

Lena made her way back to the sofa at the sudden sound. She placed her hand gently on Kara’s back and whispered a soft “ _Hey, baby_.”

Kara turned her head, finally, and looked at Lena next to her. She tried to smile but it came across as more of a grimace.

“What’s wrong, my love? Tell me how we can help you please.”

Kara’s response was so soft that they wouldn’t have heard it had they not been listening for it.

“Headache…head…’t hurts.”

They had never heard Kara sound so broken, and there was almost nothing they could do for her. These headaches that she got could not be helped by over-the-counter medication and they didn’t have any of her prescription medication left – they hadn’t needed it in years.

Lena leaned forward to press a kiss to Kara’s head before getting up and moving back to the kitchen. She quickly found a clean towel to soak with wet water, wringing it out before she brought it back to her wife. On her way back, she turned off the light in the living room and let the light from the kitchen guide her.

“Darling I’m so sorry but please turn your head. This cold towel might help a little.”

Kara turned her head slowly, still unable to stop the occasional whimper that fell from her lips. Each sound was like a knife to Lena’s heart, and Maggie was no less affected.

They eventually were able to guide Kara to their bed. The blonde immediately fell in the mattress, pressing her face into the pillow and whimpering again.

Lena and Maggie both let her know that they would be in the living room, but would come to check on her from time to time. They each pressed kisses to her head before making their way back to the sofa.

As they settled themselves on the sofa, Maggie pulled out her phone to call her wife. She let her know where she was and what Kara’s situation was at the moment. They decided that nothing would come of Alex coming over that night, but she and Maggie would switch the next day.

The two women had gotten comfortable inviting themselves to spend the night at Kara and Lena’s penthouse. Maggie decided to spend the night; Alex would go to the hospital the next day, talk to Kara’s specialist, and hopefully be able to pick up Kara’s usual prescription for painkillers.

Hanging up with her wife, Maggie turned to see Lena sunken into the sofa and staring off into space.

Quietly, the detective moved to close the space between them. She placed on hand softly on her knee and reached the other one across her shoulders to bring the younger girl into herself.

Lena turned her head at the contact, tears immediately filling her eyes. A sad smile made itself to her lips, contradicting the sheer, utter pain written across her features.

The CEO allowed her head to fall onto Maggie’s shoulder. She eventually found herself pressed deeply into the detective with slow tears making their way down her face.

Maggie felt another wet spot grow on her shoulder and laughed softly.

“You and your wife are going to need to buy me a new wardrobe soon, kid. All this crying can’t be good for my shirts.”

Maggie smiled as Lena laughed gently.

The next day, Kara couldn’t bring herself to leave her bed. She had laid curled into Lena the whole night, but when the brunette had to get up for work Kara stayed where she was. The reporter had not been able to sleep at all the night before, the stabbing pain in her head keeping her from resting at all. Instead, she just reveled in the feeling of being pressed up to her wife while the other woman was completely relaxed.

Lena and Maggie both left for work around the same time, leaving Kara with gentle kisses and reminders to call them if she needed. They knew she wouldn’t, but they had to offer.

Alex made her way over late in the afternoon. She had hoped to be able to leave the hospital much earlier with her sister’s medication but got pulled in with a patient 4 minutes before her shift was to end. As the doctor walked up to the entrance of the apartment building, she ran into her sister-in-law. They talked about the previous day’s events on the elevator ride up. Maggie had told Alex about the state in which she had found Kara, and given her a complete rundown of what happened the rest of the evening. Lena and Alex had to discuss how they were going to deal with whatever they would find when they walked in.

Kara was still in their bed when the two women walked in. It looked like she hadn’t moved at all throughout the day and Lena was getting really concerned about Kara’s lack of food intake. She understood that her wife no longer had any appetite, but going so long with no food at all was extremely unhealthy and not conducive to healing.

“Hey, babe, Alex and I brought some stuff for you. Can you sit up, please?” Kara’s head pushed further into the pillow and she let out a whimper. “I promise, love, you can lay back down as soon as we’re done. Alex has your medicine and I need you to eat a little bit, okay?”

It took some gentle coaxing, but Kara was eventually able to sit up. She leaned heavily against her wife as her sister got a syringe ready. In the beginning, Alex had joked that doctors don’t generally know how to give injections and Kara was just helping her learn new things.

No one was laughing right then.

Lena helped roll Kara’s sleeve up to expose her shoulder. There was no way they would’ve been able to maneuver Kara to give the injection in her glutes, so her deltoid would have to do.

Once Alex had administered the medication, they shifted Kara to sit against her sister instead. Lena took the syringe and medication to throw them away in the biohazard waste bin that had sat unused in their bathroom cabinet for years.

Alex sat against the back of the bed with Kara cuddled into her arms. It had been a long time since the sisters sat like that and Alex was reminded of when her little sister first came to live with them.

The doctor pressed a kiss into the crown of Kara’s head and rested there.

Lena eventually made her way back in with some macaroni-and-cheese that she had picked up on her way home. She remembered that Kara’s headaches made chewing difficult for her so soft foods were preferred. It helped that this was Kara’s favorite comfort food.

“Baby, Lena brought you some food. Can you sit up to eat just a little bit, please?”

Kara resisted her sister’s request but they eventually got her to sit up enough to eat. Even in her state she wouldn’t allow her wife to feed her but the tremor in her hand made controlling the fork difficult. It hurt their hearts to watch Kara struggle with such a basic task, especially one that usually brought her so much joy. The frustration was clear on her face but they did their best not to bring attention to it.

Conscious of the pounding pain in Kara’s skull, the two women remained silent as to not make it any worse. They would need to talk to Kara soon, but decided to wait until she was done with some food.

After only a few bites, Kara put down her fork decisively and pushed the plate away from her. Of course, they would have preferred that she ate more, but they weren’t going to push too much too fast.

The medication made Kara slightly disoriented and she could feel herself slipping. She reached out and grabbed her wife’s hand, wanting to convey some message of love and the smile that crossed Lena’s features was more than worth the discomfort the movement caused her. The blonde snuggled deeper into her sister and allowed unconsciousness to take her.


	2. We Failed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's relapse sends her spiraling.

About a week later, Kara’s headaches had calmed down. While they still came from time to time, the constant aching in her skull had receded to where she could function on a normal level once more. Alex had given her the medication for three days when they decided her condition was getting unbearable. Kara never spoke up to complain and the others hated having to make decisions for her, but they couldn’t stand to watch Kara suffer in silence when there was something that they could do.

Alex and Lena were still at work when Maggie made her way back to Kara’s penthouse. She had not been back since she found Kara hunched over the toilet and she could only hope and pray that she would find the younger girl in a better situation this time.

The detective breathed a sigh of relief when she walked in the door and was not met with the sound of retching. In talking to Kara they had realized that the nausea had been coming from the pain in her head. As the headaches went away so, too, did the nausea.

While Kara may not have been vomiting when Maggie walked in, she still couldn’t find the blonde reporter. The smaller woman put the bags she brought on the counter and headed to the master bedroom, only to find it empty. The office, living room, and kitchen were also unoccupied. Before the detective could really start panicking, however, she noticed the curtains by the balcony door fluttering.

Maggie made her way over to the large glass doors behind the kitchen and found Kara standing on the corner, leaning against the railing. She seemed completely lost in thought and made no move to acknowledge the presence of another person near her.

Mindful of Kara’s space, Maggie slowly walked out and leaned against the railing next to her. They stood in silence for a time until Kara spoke.

“I watched my entire family burn. I lost everyone I had ever known and loved when I was 13, and I thought I would be alone forever.”

Maggie’s head turned to look at Kara, not knowing where this conversation was going and mindful that the younger woman’s emotions already seemed to be on edge.

“When I moved in with the Danvers, they tried so hard to get me to be comfortable. Eliza and Jeremiah did everything they could, and Alex tried sometimes too. She had to uproot her entire life, though, and I don’t think her parents realized quite how much they were asking of her when they brought me home.

“She had gone from being an only child to being an older sibling who was expected to take care of a new, traumatized, kid. I took the attention away from her, I took her parents’ focus away from her, I took - I took her space and her comfort and the only way of life that she knew. She didn’t resent me for long, but I’ve – I’ve never forgotten just how much she-she-she had to struggle because I came into her life.”

The stutter in Kara’s voice was back. Between the emotions, the stress, and the pain in her heart, Kara couldn’t control her speech. The focus and care that it took to manage her stutter with the headaches were just not possible when she thought of how much pain she had caused the people that she loved.

There was also a pain in Kara’s voice that Maggie had not heard before. When the blonde talked about her past – usually her family’s death – she was always sad and reminiscent. The current tone, however, displayed a brokenness and self-loathing that didn’t seem possible from the bubbly blonde.

“I had decided early on that I wasn’t going to mess up anyone’s life like I messed up Alex’s. She may not accept it, but I-I-I wa- I was the worst thing to happen to her back then.”

Maggie tried to interrupt but Kara just kept going. Now that she was finally getting her thoughts out, she found that she couldn’t stop.

“And then you came and you pu-pus-pushed her out of the crater that I shoved her into and I couldn’t – I couldn’t be more grateful that someone was finally putting her first. And I knew more than ever that I could never push someone that low again.

“When I met Lena, I was…terrified. I was scared that I would drag her - drag - drag her down too; that by spending too much time with her or by be-being around her, I would take her to that dark place that I sent Alex to and I-I-I wouldn’t know how to bring her back out of it.”

Kara finally turned to look at her older sister next to her. She gave a whisper of a smile, cracking through the tears silently pouring down her cheeks.

“You guys eventually convinced me that I wa-wa-was worthy of your love. None of you knew about my fears, but you bro-br-broke – you broke through them anyways. You’re all so perfect and wonderful that none of my self-doubt and self-hatred even stood a chance.”

A small, broken laugh betrayed Kara’s actual feelings of defeat.

“And then I got sick. And I got – I got a diagnosis. But I was still convinced that we – that we could get through it together. I went into remission and it seemed like we were done. Somehow, com-com-comp-completely disregarding everything that I had put Alex through in the past, I thought that I could stay in your lives and everyone could-could-be-could be happy. And I’m so sorry for being so wrong.”

Maggie grabbed Kara’s hand then, but the younger woman tore her arm away. Kara took a step back and looked back out into the sky. Her hand seemed to move to her head of its own accord. Maggie could tell that her headache was increasing – her stutter was getting worse with every word. Blue eyes were scrunched so tight and her face was screwed in pain.

She had a sneaking suspicion, however, that that pain was not purely physical.

“This diagnosis never surprised me. I’ve al – I’ve always known that I wasn’t meant to have good things. Good things happened to me, yea, bu-but-but there was always another shoe waiting to drop right after it. I won the science fair - my family died while we went out for dinner to-to-to celebrate. Alex and I finally became friends and sisters – Jeremiah died be-be-because he was look-lo-look-looking for me. I finally met the love of my life and she loved me back – and then I got diagnosed with an incurable, autoimmune, neurodegenerative disease that comes and goes as it pleases.”

She chuckled weakly, humorlessly.

“I have everything I could have ever wanted, and in-in-in order to keep it I have to put the people I love through the hell of dealing with me too. This condition, and ev-ev-ev-everything that comes with having to deal with it, is supposed to be my punishment. It’s supposed to be for me to deal with and suffer through, and the worst thing I have ever done in my life is make you guys suffer through it with me. I sh- I sh- I should- I should have left as soon as I knew what was happening. I should have…I- I- I don’t know…”

Kara’s voice trailed off into small, broken sobs. These were the cries of someone who had completely given up and couldn’t hold themselves up anymore. She slowly sank to the ground with her face buried in her hands as her shoulders shook.

Maggie stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do. She was processing everything she had heard while trying to keep herself from breaking down. None of them – not Alex, not Lena, and not Maggie – had ever considered the possibility that Kara was suffering so much internally. As downtrodden as the blonde had seemed since her relapse, none of them could have conceived the notion that she was full of such a burning self-hatred. Maggie would never forgive herself for missing it.

The detective moved forward slowly. She gathered the blonde into her arms and pulled her into the crook of her neck. Kara grasped onto Maggie as tight as she could, almost as though she was trying to meld their bodies together.

Feeling like a complete and utter failure, Maggie had no idea what kind of comfort she could be providing her younger sister. She had no idea what Kara was going through and felt almost as though she didn’t deserve to be around her. But if Kara was getting anything from this hug, Maggie would never want to take that away from her.

The blonde’s sobs eventually died down. Her body went limp in Maggie’s arms and she started releasing slow, shuddering breaths. Maggie’s hand was still rubbing the back of her head comfortingly, and Kara pressed into the detective’s neck once more before slowly pulling away.

Blue eyes stayed down, blonde hair obscuring her features as she pulled back. Maggie tried dipping her head to catch the younger woman’s eyes but she kept her face hidden.

A soft hand reached out slowly, caressing Kara’s face to guide her to look up at her. Though the reporter’s head moved up, her eyes stayed screwed tightly shut. Maggie rubbed her thumb across Kara’s cheekbone, trying to convey all of her love for the younger woman.

She pressed a kiss into Kara’s hairline and just let her head rest there for a moment. She knew that she had to address what all Kara had said; she knew that there was no way they could leave Kara thinking so negatively about herself when all anyone wanted to do was give her all the love in the world. But she also knew that Kara was in no place to hear what she had to say. The heartbroken blonde would not be able to accept and internalize any messages of love when she was in such a dark headspace.

Maggie gently eased Kara up. The blonde sagged heavily onto the Italian woman’s smaller body, but Maggie softly guided her into the penthouse and to the sofa. Kara laid down and immediately rolled over to press her face into the pillow on the back.

It may have been better to just let her go back to her bed, but Maggie hated the thought of Kara being in a dark, enclosed room. The openness of the living room at least allowed some light and movement of air.

Quietly taking a seat on the coffee table in front of her, Maggie just looked at Kara for a moment. Eventually she slid forward so that she was on her knees next to the sofa and ran her hand over Kara’s head. A small smile crept across her features when Kara pressed her head back into Maggie’s hand.

“You have been one of the greatest blessings of our lives. No one – not a single one of us – would trade that for anything in the world. We don’t love you because we have to, we love you because we do, and that’s really all there is to it. And we will all be here until you believe that again.”

A shuddering inhale was her only response.

Kara had eventually dozed off, surely exhausted from the weight of her emotional turmoil. As she slept, Maggie went to the kitchen. Once again, she simply stored the food away, uneaten.

She didn’t know what to do. The detective was used to having an answer to most problems – and if she didn’t have an answer, then she would find one. She didn’t even know where to begin looking for these answers. She hadn’t even known there was a problem for which a solution was necessary.

Maggie slowly started getting more and more worked up. Internally berating herself for missing the signs of Kara’s downward spiral, she busied herself in cleaning the penthouse. Almost unconsciously, she moved through the kitchen and the dining area and the hallways, yelling at herself the entire time.

Lena walked through the door to the image of Kara pressed into the cushions of the sofa and Maggie furiously wiping down the kitchen island.

The feeling of failure had built up in Maggie to the point that her hands were shaking. This was the first thing Lena noticed as she got closer to her.

It was clear to the taller woman that something had happened to really shake Maggie. The smaller was usually very well in-control of herself, even when Alex and Lena tended to get more worked up and jump into situations headfirst. Maggie was always the one to stay level-headed and remain calm.

Lena moved her hand forward to take the washcloth from Maggie. She immediately jerked her hand away, clinging to the fabric as though she would break without it. There was a fury in her eyes that Lena had never seen before and, honestly, frightened her a bit.

Maggie eventually realized who was standing in front of her. When she recognized the fear in green eyes, the detective’s shoulder’s sagged, the tension left her body, and her eyes filled with tears. She threw the rag on the counter.

Lena watched as Maggie tilted her head, eyes screwed shut. When Maggie eventually opened her eyes, Lena was surprised to find tears just waiting to fall.

“We need to talk, kiddo – you, me, and Alex.” She took a shuddering breath, “We failed. All of us.”

A new fear settled into Lena’s bones. Her eyes immediately shot back to Kara, laying on the sofa with her face completely hidden from the world around her.

Dark black hair whipped around as Lena’s head turned back to Maggie. The fear mixed with utter devastation as her mind went to all of the possibilities that could have led to Maggie being in this position and saying those words.

“We have to wait, though. Alex has a 24-hour shift and won’t be off until tomorrow. I already called my captain and took tomorrow off. We’ll let Alex eat something, rest, and then we need to talk when you get back from work.”

Brown eyes stayed focused on the wall as she spoke. Lena didn’t know if Maggie just couldn’t look her in the eyes or if she was physically and emotionally incapable of looking at anything else.

She was too afraid to ask.

* * *

As much as Alex tried to rest, she just couldn’t. There was a disconcerting energy in the penthouse as she got back. She wasn’t planning on going there after her shift, but Maggie had just messaged her to come over. It was a simple message, not out of the ordinary compared to the rest of the messages she got from her wife; but there was something about the message that just put Alex on edge.

She had finished her 24-hour shift 3 hours late. By the time she got to Lena and Kara’s home it was already afternoon. The other women were eating lunch when she got there and she happily joined them at the table.

It was immediately clear that something had happened. Lena looked incredibly anxious, while Maggie was completely checked out. Kara was quiet as she had been since her relapse.

Alex had a feeling she would not be getting much rest.

Any attempts at conversation were met with stilted responses. Eventually Alex had to give up.

After they had lunch, the doctor did go to Kara and Lena’s guest room to lay down a bit while the others stayed in the living room area. Once there, her mind continued to race, however, and she was unable to turn it off.

About an hour later, having given up on getting any sleep, Alex wandered back into the living room. Maggie was sitting on the love seat by herself. She was looking at the TV but it was obvious that she was completely spaced out.

Lena was sitting up against the arm of the sofa. Kara was pressed completely against her, head tucked into her wife’s neck. They were sitting so close that it was almost impossible to tell where one started and the other began.

As she walked further into the living room, she went around the back of the sofa. Alex bent down next to the two women and pressed a kiss to the crown of Kara’s head. She ran her hand gently over her sister’s hair as the blonde turned to smile at her.

It was like a balm on Alex’s heart to see Kara genuinely smile at her. It had been so long since Alex had seen a smile on her sister’s face. While it might not have held her usual light and exuberance, it was better than it had been for the last few weeks.

Standing up, Alex leaned forward to press a kiss to Lena’s head as well. They all knew that Lena had had a horrific upbringing, growing up completely deprived of love and affection. Each one of them tried to do whatever they could to give her as much as possible now.

The brunette then turned her attention to her wife. The smaller woman seemed to be looking at them with judgment in her eyes. Alex was slowly starting to get a headache trying to decipher what was going on in her wife’s head.

Maggie stood up abruptly, heading immediately for the washroom. Alex wanted to follow after her, but she hadn’t seen her sister in days and she needed to stay with her too.

Kara watched as her sister struggled to choose between herself and her wife. The blonde knew that Alex wanted to go after Maggie – she knew that Alex would give anything to go after her wife. But she also knew that she felt some sort of obligation to stay with her as well.

This was exactly what she had been thinking of when she broke down in front of Maggie the night before. Kara knew that there was something Alex wanted to do more than sit with her quietly, but she couldn’t. Once again, Kara was holding Alex back.

She felt any ounce of happiness that she had garnered from her time snuggling with Lena slowly dissipate from her body. As the guilt and self-hatred slowly crept back into her bones, Kara felt as though she was suffocating her wife. Lena wanted to watch TV and Kara just  
came and laid completely across her body, pressing into her, and breathing on her neck for a whole hour.

As the hate-filled thoughts established themselves in her mind once more, Kara felt her headache start to come back. Alex’s image was slowly starting to become more and more hazy.

She didn’t want to be feeling like this, and she knew that just a few months ago she wouldn’t be thinking like this. But with her guilt over breaking down in front of Maggie the night before, everything was just building up and she felt like she was drowning.

Kara pulled Lena closer to her. She needed the feeling of her wife close by, the comfort and the love exuding from Lena’s entire body was sometimes the only thing that could keep her from drifting away into the void in her mind. She needed Lena to stay tethered. And she hated herself for it.

Lena looked down as Kara tightened her grip. She could feel Kara press her face deeper into her shoulder and scrunch up her face. The brunette slowly started trailing her hand up and down her wife’s back. She wanted to be as comforting as possible.

Maggie had told her a little bit about her conversation with Kara before she got home the night before. Lena’s heart felt as though it was sitting in thousands of shattered pieces, stabbing at her every time she breathed. It tore her to pieces to think that she had no idea what was going on in Kara’s head despite living together for years.

A soft voice drifted into Kara’s awareness and some of the tension left her body on its own.

_Where the north wind meets the sea_   
_There’s a river full of memories_   
_Sleep, my darling, safe and sound_   
_For in this river all is found_

_She will sing to those who’ll hear_   
_And in her song all magic flows_   
_Can you brave what you most fear_   
_Can you face what the river knows?_

_When the north wind meets the sea_   
_There’s a mother full of memories_   
_Come my darling homeward bound_   
_When all is lost then all is found_

Alex and Lena joined together to sing the soft lullaby to Kara. The blonde’s mother used to sing it to her when she was a child. They were the only two people in her life with whom Kara had shared that information.

The exhaustion and the pain and the love exuding from the two women next to her had Kara slowly slip into a sleep-filled world.

Lena held her wife close for a little longer. This was the first time in a long time that Kara was so relaxed next to her and she wanted to relish in the feeling as much as she could.

Alex’s head turned when the door to the bathroom opened. Maggie stepped out with red-rimmed eyes, meeting Alex’s curious eyes and she felt her shoulders sag.

The doctor stood up and walked towards her wife. Rarely had Alex ever seen Maggie so broken, and it was terrifying to think what could have happened to have brought this on.

Leaving Kara on the sofa, the other three women made their way to their in-home office. This was not a conversation that they wanted Kara to overhear, and the office was the last place she would look for them if she woke up soon.

Maggie walked all the way into the room, leaning against the wall with the giant window facing the city. She stood there for a moment, watching the sun as it started setting and the cars and people beneath them moved about their lives, completely oblivious of what was going on in the world around them.

But that was the truth of everyone’s life, wasn’t it? 7 billion people in the world, 7 billion different worlds that exist around each other. Maggie had spent a lot of time thinking about that when she was living with her aunt; she wanted to ask every person she saw if they were as broken as she was – if they had been abandoned by the people that were always supposed to be there for them too. Gradually she came to realize that, as much as she had no idea what was going on in anyone else’s life, they would never know what she was going through either.

Lena sat in one of the love seats by the door of the office. She didn’t want to be too far from the door in case Kara got up and started looking for her.

Alex stood by the bookshelf, keeping both other women in her line of sight.

Neither of them knew exactly what happened for Maggie to call them like she did. The detective looked broken in a way they hadn’t seen before.

Eventually, Alex couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Babe, what’s going on? What happened?”

Maggie’s head turned to Alex as though she hadn’t realized there were other people in the room. Brown eyes were swimming in tears as they met her wife’s. Seeing the concern and love and fear etched in the faces of the two women next to her, Maggie finally felt herself break under what all had happened the night before.

And she laughed.

She didn’t know what else to do. The smaller woman had never once felt like such a failure. In her entire life, not once had she felt the scorching, heart-melting, shame of failing on such an astronomical level. She felt like Orpheus who was supposed to lead Eurydice out of Hades but failed and just sealed her fate to stay in the Underworld.

Alex and Lena watched in horror as Maggie laughed. It wasn’t a humorous laugh – no it was the maniacal laughter of someone who was so far past crying.

Eventually, the laughter morphed into tears. They poured down her cheeks and jumped off her jaw in a way Maggie envied – she also wished she could jump far away from herself.

“I have never known three people to fail so hard at a common goal.” She stepped away from the window slightly. Maggie could tell that Alex and Lena were getting more and more concerned, but she had no idea how to be tactful at that moment.

“Our entire purpose was to support Kara; to make sure that she didn’t have to suffer too greatly as her world was shaken at its core. And that one thing – that one thing that should have been so simple and so easy for those of us who love her as much as we do – that one thing  
is what we failed at the hardest.

“You know what she said to me last night? When I got here and I found her staring at the stars from the balcony? All she could talk about was how much she hates herself for ruining the lives of everyone around her.”

A sob interrupted Maggie’s tirade. She couldn’t hold it in with that statement.

Lena felt her own tears slowly carve their way down her face.

“She’s convinced that she is the worst thing that could have happened to you, Alex. And that was apparently the thing that kept her from getting closer to Little Luthor in the beginning – she didn’t want to ruin your life the way she thinks she ruined Alex’s.”

Alex felt her jaw clench. Every muscle in her body gradually got more and more tense as Maggie kept talking. Her approach had always been to physically fight her way through whatever obstacle came their way – she couldn’t punch Kara’s thoughts, though.

They all knew that Kara had faced a lot in her life. The bubbly blonde had faced a series of tragedies that no person should have to go through in their life. She had tried therapy a few times, but it never seemed to go far for her. They had never found a therapist who knew how to handle Kara’s positive approach to dealing with her trauma. Everyone expected her to be broken and dark inside. They didn’t know how to deal with the light that came from Kara’s experiences.

They didn’t realize that the brightest places can still have shadows.

“She thinks that she isn’t supposed to have good things. She said that this is a punishment that she’s supposed to take on alone and that it’s cruel of her to make us deal with it too.” The small woman took a deep breath and stood up straighter. She collected herself and forced herself to put her emotions away. This was no longer about any of them. Their sole focus and priority had to be proving to Kara that they love her more than anything; no relapse was going to change that.

“We have to do better. I don’t know what that better is, all I know is that we have to make sure that she knows she is the brightest light of our lives and that we love her with every fiber of our beings.”

Alex and Lena both had tears streaming down their faces. They were staring into the distance, both trying to comprehend what Maggie had just told them.

Alex was thrown back to all of the times she had hurt Kara when her parents first adopted the young blonde. It had been almost 2 decades since then, but Alex still carried the guilt for treating her sister so horribly. And through her college and sexual-self-discovery, Alex knew that she wasn’t the easiest to deal with.

She loved her sister, though, more than anything in her life. She would do better about letting her know that.

Lena was numb. Her life had been empty before she met Kara. Her mother was dead, her father was dead, her brother was arrested for domestic terrorism, and her mother was an abusive and manipulative piece of shit. Lena’s life was a dark cavern where she did not allow anyone entrance.

But Kara made her way in.

Even if she wanted to, Lena would not have been able to keep Kara away from herself. The blonde exuded a love and light so pure that it chipped away at every barricade Lena had crafted around her heart. Before long, Kara seemed to have the lock, the key, and the deed to Lena’s entire being.

Despite that, despite the fact that Kara undoubtedly saved Lena’s very soul, Kara still felt as though she didn’t deserve them. Somehow, Lena had left enough room for Kara to doubt her worth and her value in Lena’s life.

Maggie was right. No one had ever failed another person on the same level.

Kara was easily one of the most important people in their lives. No matter what happened, they had to make sure that Kara never doubted that again.

They slowly made their way back out of the office and into the living room. Kara was still curled into the back cushion of the sofa.

Maggie and Alex went about getting dinner prepared for the four of them, while Lena made her way over to her wife.

The businesswoman gently shifted Kara so that they were on the sofa together. Kara immediately turned over and pressed herself into Lena as much as she could.

Lena felt tears well in her eyes once more as she held her wife close. Feeling Kara’s soft breaths on her neck and relishing in the warmth of her presence, Lena vowed to do better – to do better for her best friend, her wife, her love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your kind comments on the last chapter; I appreciate every single on of you. My intention was not to cause any concern on your part for myself. Luckily, I am in full remission at the moment and am much improved.

**Author's Note:**

> I was recently diagnosed with MS. This is kind of my way of dealing with it. All of the symptoms that Kara faces in here are the symptoms that I was dealing with that led to my diagnosis.  
> This is unbetad, so I apologize for any issues. To be honest, this was really more of a therapeutic exercise for me than anything else.


End file.
